I sauntered over to the soldiers, trying to appear confident. A couple of them wore the Harrington arms, and raised their hands in greeting.
“Page,” cried one whom I recognised as Robert Caunfield, a tough, foul-mouthed veteran of the Welsh war, “not dead, then? We thought some Frenchie had stuck his dagger up your bum-hole.”
All sentiment, he was. “Blame excess of French wine for my disappearance,” I lied, accepting the drink he offered me from his flask, “I woke with a sore head in some alleyway or other inside the old quarter. God knows how I ended up there.”
“Probably after some skirt,” Caunfield grunted, “you were lucky not to get your throat cut. More than one of our lads died that way last night.”
As I drank, I caught a whiff of burning, and turned my head to see a gauze of smoke hanging over the town centre. A few wisps of charred sheepskin tumbled lazily through the air.
“King Harry ordered all the town records to be piled up in the street and burned,” explained Caunfield in response to my questioning look, “the Mayor and the burghers begged him not to, but Harry had that look on his face.”
“Like my wife when she catches me raiding the larder,” remarked another man, to a ripple of laughter.
“Made a pretty fire, they did,” said Caunfield, “all those old ledgers and chests and heaps of parchment. Lit up the night sky. Harry’s way of wiping out the past, I suppose.”
So it was. Henry punished the citizens of Caen by destroying the evidence of their past. He knew that history is malleable, little more then marks on parchment, and aimed to wipe out the history of Caen as a French town. It was English now, part of the reborn Plantagenet empire.
There was something else in the air, a foul slaughterhouse reek that made my eyes water.
“What in God’s name is that?” I demanded, clapping a hand over my mouth.
“Dead Frenchies,” one of my companions said carelessly, “all piled up in the town square. Men, women and infants. About two thousand, I reckon. When the fighting was done, King Harry had them herded into the town square and put to the sword.”
I stared at him. “Why? Why kill so many innocents? To what end?”
The other man shrugged. “Harry offered terms of surrender. They were rejected. The Frenchies had to be taught a lesson. Now all the other towns in Normandy will think twice before thumbing their noses at us.”
He was right. The deliberate, organised slaughter of two thousand citizens at Caen, regardless of age or sex, was intended to act as both punishment and warning. Henry’s heralds had issued a summons to surrender before the final assault, and the citizens had chosen to fight rather than submit. They could have expected no mercy, and received none.
These are easy words to write. Decades of soldiering have hardened me, and I have seen enough atrocities to know how commonplace they are in war. At the time, I was still a raw youth, and the massacre of Caen shook me.
I had heard rumours of King Henry’s cruelty, such as his cold-blooded slaughter of French prisoners at Agincourt, but now the stench of dead children confirmed it.
“Harry has an iron stomach for such work,” said Caunfield, “we were up to our knees in blood, and I thought the killing would never end, until at last he gave the order to stop. They say he stumbled over a headless woman with a live babe suckling at the teat. That was enough to bring him to his senses.”
My shock and disgust must have been plain, for Caunfield abruptly changed the subject. “Sir Richard will be pleased to know you’re alive,” he went on, with a sly grin, “he saw you carry his father’s standard up the ladder. Everyone did. We were very impressed.”
“Quite the hero,” said Nicholas Russe, another of Harrington’s company, exchanging winks with his fellows. “They’ll be singing ballads of you next.”
I laughed along with their gentle mockery, though my laughter stemmed more from relief than amusement. It seemed my little exploit had been noticed after all. There was no mention, Christ be thanked, of my brawl with the archers. Or Catherine.
Caunfield jerked his thumb at the nearest house. “Come and have a bit of breakfast,” he said, “there’s fresh bread, or ought to be. Otherwise I’ll take my belt to the cook’s arse. The villain speaks no decent English, though he understands blows and kicks well enough.”
I followed him inside to the kitchen and tried to quell my suspicions. Caunfield had never exchanged more than a few words with me before. His sudden friendliness disturbed me.
For an hour or so I sat and chewed warm bread and listened to his lies about the feats of arms he had performed in Wales.
“I served at Pilleth, soon after the rebellion broke out,” he said, “you’ve heard of that battle?”
I made the mistake of saying I had not, which inspired him to describe the fight in detail. It seemed that the Welsh rebels thoroughly chased our soldiers up hill and down dale, all except the noble exception of Robert Caunfield, who fought like a lion while his comrades ran for their lives.
He used bits of wheaten bread to show the movements of the armies, with himself as the largest crumb in the middle.
“I fought Glendower hand-to-hand,” he boasted, “he was a strong swordsman, but I had the measure of him. I might have ended the rebellion, there and then, if my sword had not broken on his helm.”
Caunfield was a poor liar, as well as a bore and a bully, and I started to entertain cynical thoughts about the truth of his performance on the battlefield, or even if he had been there at all. Eventually the sun came to my rescue. Fresh golden daylight streamed through the bars of the latticed window and recalled him to his duty.
“Let us find Sir Richard,” he said, rising from the table, “he mourns his father, yet doesn’t neglect business. Come.”
I followed him down the street to a small chapel with a tall spire. Two guardsmen in Harrington livery stood by the entrance. They exchanged grave nods with Caunfield as we crossed the threshold.
The nave was cool and dark, dappled by coloured light filtered through the tinted panes of the stained-glass window behind the altar.
Beside the altar was a wooden bier, surrounded by a golden blaze. The blaze came from the tall candelabras placed at each corner of the bier, upon which rested the body of Sir James Harrington. He still wore the armour he had died in, washed clean of blood and dirt.
Sir James’ visor was open, and the crossbow bolt that slew him had been removed. His eyeball went with it, and the empty socket stared blankly up at the vaulted roof of the chapel.
A white-robed confessor stood next to the bier. His head was bowed, and he muttered low prayers. Otherwise the chapel was empty, though I fancied I caught an unusual odour: not of decay, but something fresh, like the smell of new hay or spring flowers.
They say that when Christian saints die, the chambers they die in are filled with such an odour. Sir James Harrington was no saint, but a good knight and loyal servant to the House of Lancaster. Perhaps my mind was affected by the holy stillness of the church, and caused me to imagine the smell.
Caunfield beckoned me to follow him through a door inside a partition to the left of the nave. Inside was a little closed-off chamber, with a gilt crucifix hanging on the wall.
We found Sir Richard Harrington alone at prayer. He knelt in full armour on the bare stone, hands clasped, eyes fixed on the crucifix.
“Your pardon, my lord,” said Caunfield, “but you wished to be informed the moment John Page was found, dead or alive.”
Sir Richard stood up to face us. His broad, homely features were ghastly pale, and his eyes bloodshot from tears and lack of sleep.
“I did,” he said shortly, “thank you, Robert. Duty comes before grief.”
He wiped his eyes with the back of his gauntlet, and blinked wearily at me. “I thought you were dead, Page,” he said, “lost in the chaos of the sack. God saw fit to preserve you.”
“He preserved me, too, to atone for my humiliation,” he added before I could speak, “when
my father’s standard fell from his hands, it was not I who heeded the call of honour, and carried it into the fray. No, I stood there like a stuffed dummy, while a mere esquire did my duty for me.”
He prodded me in the chest with his steel finger. “You were the first man up the ladders, Page. The troops saw you wave my standard from the battlements. It gave them fresh heart, and ripped the guts out of the French. If not for you, the assault on the eastern wall might have failed.”
I knew none of this. As I have said, my decision to snatch up the fallen banner and carry it up the ladder was born of pure instinct. That single act of unthinking courage - or madness - gave birth to a reputation I scarcely deserved.
“Don’t think me envious,” said Sir Richard, “for envy is a sin, and unworthy of a belted knight. No, I would gladly praise and reward you for the deed.”
His face clouded, and I braced myself for the worst. Had word of my crimes in England drifted across the Channel? I cursed my folly in not assuming a false name when I joined the army. John Page, bastard esquire of Kingshook, must have been on the lips of every sheriff and bailiff from Steventon to the Cinque Ports.
My fears proved groundless. “The tale of your exploit spread quickly, as such tales so,” Sir Richard went on, “and reached the ears of the Duke of Clarence. His Grace wishes to see you.”
The rest of that day was like a glorious dream. I believe I floated in the wake of Sir Richard as he took me to the duke’s lodgings, which were suitably magnificent. Clarence always stood on his prestige, and held court inside the largest of the grand public buildings inside the Ile Saint Jean.
Sir Richard took six men-at-arms, including Caunfield, and we shouldered our way through a large square crowded with townsfolk and soldiers. The wealthy burghers of Caen had largely avoided the horrors of the previous night, since they were rich enough to hide behind stout walls and hired guards. Now they had emerged, like so many greedy parasites, to feed off their new rulers.
The crowds were thickest around the tall iron doors of Clarence’s house. Here a score of archers stood guard, and threatened to beat any who came too near with their staves.
The archers let us through into a large hall filled to bursting with people. My eyes watered at the blizzard of coat-armour. At first I thought every Englishman fit to bear arms was packed inside, though there can’t have been more than twenty or thirty, including servants and esquires.
These were the men of Clarence’s retinue, still rolling drunk from the night’s celebrations. The hall was lit on one side by four arched and mullioned windows. Opposite was a huge fireplace, inside which the best part of a tree burned merrily. Braces of fat capons roasted on a number of spits laid over the fire, as well as an entire hog. Servants in Plantagenet livery moved among the hungry throng at the tables, doling out slabs of charred meat balanced on flat knives.
On the further side of the hall was a door guarded by four halberdiers. Sir Richard pushed his way through the diners, exchanging offhand jests with those he knew, and spoke quietly to one of the guards. The guard nodded, vanished through the door, and re-appeared moments later to beckon at us.
“His Grace is still at breakfast,” Sir Richard said to me as we filed through, “but happy to receive us. Take care to speak only when spoken to, and don’t look him in the eye.”
We entered the inner chamber. Though small, it was as splendidly furnished and decorated as the duke’s servants could make it. Rich tapestries were draped over the bare white walls, depicting the battles of Joshua and Gideon and the fall of Jericho. The ancient hosts of the Israelites and Midianites were all clad in modern plate and mail, and rode knightly chargers, an artistic conceit that has always baffled me.
At one side of the room there was a high perch. Two gerfalcons sat upon it, still and silent in their velvet hoods. Beside them stood their keeper, who fed them tidbits of raw chicken from a platter.
The duke sat alone at table. He was dressed plainly, in a dark grey jupon with black sleeves, and spooned meat broth into his mouth from a wooden bowl. A young page stood behind his chair, ready to refill his master’s goblet with wine from a silver ewer.
Sir Richard and I bowed, while he put down his spoon and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. This was the first time I had met the duke in private. He looked much like the king, if slightly fleshier, with the prominent nose and heavy jaw characteristic of their family.
He was about thirty, still young enough to carve a name for himself in the annals of history, but old enough to feel the weight of time pressing on his shoulders. Thus far he had achieved little of note, and I believe he and all his brothers lived under the crushing shadow of their father, Henry of Bolingbroke.
By the age of twenty-five, Bolingbroke had already led a successful rebellion against his King, fought on Crusade against the pagans of Lithuania, and won a glittering reputation as one of the best military captains and tournament fighters in Christendom.
King Henry’s victory at Agincourt had somewhat lifted the burden from his shoulders. His third brother Humphrey of Gloucester fought at that battle and shared in some of the glory. The youngest - and in my opinion, the best of the whole brood - John of Bedford, had won a sea-battle against the French before the walls of Harfleur.
The list of Clarence’s military honours, by sad contrast, was thin to the point of non-existence. His mediocrity and lack of achievement chafed at him, gnawed at him like a sickness, and eventually led him to catastrophe. How we are all dominated by our fathers!
Clarence rubbed his thin hands in a businesslike fashion and nodded amiably at us.
“Sir Richard,” he said, “I see from the pallor of your skin, and the dimness in your eye, that you have been at vigil all night. Words cannot express the sorrow in my heart for your father. He was the best of knights, and the most loyal of men.”
“My thanks, Your Grace,” the other man replied heavily, “I have brought the esquire John Page, as Your Grace requested. We thought him lost during the final assault on the town, but he appeared this morning, hale and sound.”
Clarence lounged in his chair, one long arm draped over the back. Like his eldest brother, he had the common touch, and could be charming when he wished.
“Ah, the man who held aloft the standard on the eastern wall,” he said with an agreeable smile, “that was a noble feat. You are valiant, Master Page. Valiant men should be honoured. And rewarded.”
He pushed back his chair. I remembered not to meet his eye, and bowed my head as he rose gracefully and strode towards me.
“You signed an indenture to serve in the company of Sir James Harrington,” he said, “Sir James is dead, and your term of service passes to his heir.”
“Sir Richard,” he added, turning to my companion, “my brother Humphrey is your commander, is he not?”
“Indeed, Your Grace,” came the reply.
“Humphrey shall raise no objection if I poach one of his men-at-arms. I want John Page to serve in my retinue. Give him to me.”
I swallowed, and looked from one to the other. Clarence’s smooth-shaven features were impassive, the face of a man born to supreme wealth and power, who could gain almost anything if he desired it. His request was typically arrogant and high-handed. God only knew how his brother, the equally proud Humphrey of Gloucester, would react when he heard of it.
Your Majesty may marvel at how I, a free-born Englishman and a Christian, was passed around between masters like some bonded serf. It wasn’t my place to object, only obey, and seek to profit.
Sir Richard was not one to deny the duke’s wishes. “Take him, Your Grace,” he replied, with another elegant bow.
Thus I entered - or rather, was given over to - the service of the Duke of Clarence, and my life thrown onto a new and unexpected course.
15.
The garrison of Caen, holed up inside the citadel and subjected to a relentless artillery barrage, soon surrendered and opened their gates. Now the town was his, Henry could afford to show h
is merciful side. With carefully calculated generosity, he allowed the common soldiers and their families to march away with honour. They took their goods with them, and two thousand crowns in gold.
Their commanders, including the Sieur de Montenay, were too valuable to set free. These men were sent to captivity in England and held in honourable confinement until their ransoms were paid.
Henry ordered the Plantagenet banner raised over the keep, and with that his conquest of the town was complete. Now he could turn his mind to the rest of Normandy.
Much of the northern half of the duchy was in English hands, and the next few months were spent in capturing one town after another. My new lord, Clarence, was despatched east, to march through the Pays d’Auge. At the same time Gloucester moved west into the Cotentin, and the Earl of Warwick swept through the south. King Henry marched on Falaise, birthplace of his ancestor, William the Bastard. Henry always appreciated the value of symbols, and knew that seizing the Conqueror’s birthplace would strike a terrible blow to Norman morale.
Enemy resistance crumbled in the face of our simultaneous advance. Most of the major towns in Normandy, including Bayeux, Argentan and Alencon, offered terms rather than risk the same fate as Caen. Save for a few pockets of resistance, almost the entire duchy had fallen into our hands before Christmas.
Clarence’s division marched east. I vividly remember that march through peaceful countryside, drowsing in the late autumn heat. The farmland is superb in that part of Normandy, and we fed on ripe apples from the orchards, as well as milk and rich cheeses stolen or bought from the local peasants. Clarence was less merciful to the natives than his brother, though he kept his troops on a fairly tight rein.
“It pays to pay,” I heard him remark to his officers, “we mean to rule these people, after all, so there is little sense in spoiling the countryside too much. If we destroy the harvests in the fields, the peasants will starve, and the land go to ruin.”
The duke took little notice of me during the march. I was little more than a useful piece of meat, to be hurled into a breach or up a scaling ladder, and thus win more glory for English arms - and, by extension, more glory for Clarence. He had spoken to me in a friendly fashion, once, in Caen, but the gulf between us was vast and unbridgeable. Dukes of royal blood do not consort with bastard-born esquires unless strictly necessary.
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